Chapter Text
[2007]
It had only been a little over two decades since the last time Hela had been in New York, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell this by looking at the city.
This was a different part of New York from the one Anthony had grown up in - or the one Hela had frequented - that was true. Still, the rapidity with which Midgardians continued to advance and grow was as fascinating as it was alarming.
Where were they going, running so fast?
Hela had come to appreciate it, however.
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” asked K’uk’ulkan, sitting down in front of her. “How much opulence and richness one can have, while others starve and beg for scraps.”
“The world – the universe, really – is an unfair place,” commented Hela. “Anthony may be ridiculously rich, but he is doing his best to help. You yourself could help many of the humans, were you to wish to.”
“Ah, but my help would not be appreciated,” said the King, smiling coldly. “And even if it were, we all know the ones who live above. They would accept what I have offered, and then stab me in the back in an attempt to steal everything else I might be possess or be hiding, until I am left with nothing and they are fighting over what was once rightfully mine. The world above is full of traitors, murderers and monsters who do monster acts against those they believe evil. None of them are to be trusted.”
Hela smiled too. “I cannot understand why the Ancient One or Agatha do not find you as delightful as I do,” she said, tongue heavy with sarcasm. “What could possibly be unlikable about you?”
K’uk’ulkan rolled his eyes, once more surveying the room with polite distaste. “I preferred your home in California.”
Hela was not surprised, but she still cocked her head in question. “I never told you I lived in California. Or which home in California belonged to me."
“I make a point of knowing where everyone lives, ally or foe,” said K’uk’ulkan, quite unapologetic ally. “And do not pretend. You lived so close to the ocean, you would have been more surprised to learn I did not know of your residence.” His lips lifted. “I appreciated your presence. Your children have always been very good at keeping the ocean clean and picking up after themselves.”
That had been, surprisingly, Winter's influence. As an assassin he took exception to leaving things behind him, since it meant risking blowing up one's cover and thus, death or mission failure.
The paranoia had never quite left him, and he had passed down a lot of good manner on everyone because of it.
“Anthony’s empire is expanding,” she explained to the unanswered question. “It’s better for him to be based in New York rather than remain in Malibu. And don’t worry, not all of the girls are moving to New York indefinitely. Some of them work for SWORD, some work in Malibu, and some simply prefer Malibu. Thus, they plan to return soon enough. Winter has considered returning with those who do."
“Separation,” he mused. “Inevitable, is it not?”
Separation.
Hela did not like that word and, she had to admit, she had not taken the news of the upcoming one all too well.
She hadn't caused a scene, of course. She had not fought their choices or decisions, because she had never done so and refused to ever do. She knew what that felt and looked like, and she would never be the one to do so to them.
But she could not deny that the idea of leaving any of them behind, the thought of not having every one of them under one roof as she had for most of their lives was... distressing.
She had watched them for more years than any of their parents had. She had all but raised them, one dance pose and battle move at a time.
And now, many of them were ready to leave.
It had been hard when Anthony had decided to found his company and the girls had found careers, work or schooling. Hela (and Winter) had found themselves suddenly with nothing to do, nobody to look after ('empty nest syndrome', had called it Edwin Jarvis; Hela did not understand the term as neither she nor Winter were birds).
At least, back then, Hela had known that they would return... home. At the end of the day, week, month, semester... eventually, they came back home.
This was different.
It was different, and Hela was not happy about it.
But she understood it. Norns, did she understand it.
And it was not as if Hela would not be able to see them at a moment’s notice. She had her magic, and portals, and her mirrors.
Winter had not so sneakily stolen one of Hela’s mirror of sights, and she was also pretending not to know of the unholy alliance that had begun between him and a sorcerer named Wong, who was teaching him how to use it in order to gain the recipe to Edwin Jarvis’ ‘crostata di mela e cannella’ – the closest thing they had to a ‘family recipe’.
He’d never let anything happen to the girls, and was anything to go wrong, Hela would be at their side before they could even invoke her name.
So it was going to be unpleasant, when they left.
But they would not be gone, and Hela knew she would learn to live with it.
She wouldn't like it.
But she would cope.
So, she refused to take K’uk’ulkan’s bait, focusing again on him. “Are you not gonna ask?”
“About why you summoned me? No.” He crossed his arms, putting down the water he had been sipping. “I’d rather you tell me.”
Hela turned her hand palm up, and when she did, the Mind Stone manifested in it.
K’uk’ulkan was appropriately surprised by it. “I thought the Ancient One had that.”
“That is what I decided to let people-”
“Meaning Agatha Harkness-”
“-believe. But TAO cannot very well guard two Infinity Stones.” She held the stone between two fingers, watching the brilliant yellow for a second or two. “Nor can I.”
K’uk’ulkan said nothing.
“Yes,” said Hela, anyway. She made the stone float out of her hand towards him. “I am giving it to you.”
“Me,” he said in a flat tone, watching the stone float before him. “Agatha won’t be happy.”
“She won’t,” agreed Hela. “Hence why I have chosen to leave the Ancient One with the dubious honour of having to deal with her.”
“I will never understand their relationship.”
“Nobody does or can.”
K’uk’ulkan slowly reached for the stone, not quite touching it but staring at it consideringly. “Agatha will not be the only one to be unhappy with this move,” he warned. “Many will tell you that it is a terrible idea to give me such power.”
“I’m sure they will,” agreed Hela.
He tore his eyes from the stone and back to her. “Why me?”
She tilted her head, watching him curiously. “Does it matter?”
“Humour me, please.”
“Only one thing matters to you above everything,” said Hela, after a second of thinking about it. “Keeping your family and your people safe from any sort of threat. You’d kill for them.” She nodded. “I like that in a person.”
He raised an eyebrow, almost amused. “Most will tell you that that is a terrible reason to give someone an Infinity Stone.”
“Most are not me,” said Hela. “Like recognises like.”
“This could be a terrible idea,” he repeated, fingers finally locking around the stone. He shuddered, but did not collapse under its weight and its magic, just as she had hoped. His eyes flitted between the stone and hers. “I could use this stone to control the minds of the people of above like Druig did before, and do with Earth and the mortals as I wish.”
“You could,” amiably agreed Hela. “However, if you do, I will hunt you down, colour Talokan and the ocean you call home in your blood, and rip the stone out of your cold dead fingers.” She gave him an easy smile. “It would be no effort.”
“Certainly some effort,” complained K’uk’ulkan, a slight smile on his lips that assured her he understood and had taken the threat for the warning it was.
“I am sure you would do your best,” she said, teasingly.
K’uk’ulkan scoffed, and then glanced up as Varvara and Antonia fell into the room through the window.
“No time to talk,” shouted Antonia, as they ran across the room and towards the door.
“You did not see us!” added Varvara, disappearing behind her.
K’uk’ulkan appeared perplexed. “Are we not on the 87th floor?”
Hela watched the door close behind them, brows furrowed in equal bemusement. “Indeed. And I thought the point of each one of us having apartments was less of... all that.” She then shook her head, choosing to dismiss thoughts of how and why they were the way they were (she frankly blamed it all on Winter) and turned back to K’uk’ulkan.
The merman was already looking at her, eyes glittering more pleasantly.
“You know, I’m curious,” he said, taking his drink again. “What exactly are they?”
“How do you mean?”
“Thena and you put me and my army as the first line of defence, in charge of keeping Earth safe in case Thanos’ army got through you all, but we could still see what was happening beyond some of the portals. They are very skilled fighters, those girls of yours. That assassin companion you live with appeared very skilled and deadly. And your boy Anthony and his friend, well... even I was intrigued by those armours he built and was fighting with.”
“They are efficient warriors,” agreed Hela, trying to not appear too proud.
“So, are they a new cohort? Your, how would you say it... Midgardian cohort of Valkyries?”
Hela could not help but laugh at this. “Please,” she said, amused by the mere idea. “The Valkyries would destroy all of them apart from Brunnhilde and the Hulk quite easily.” She fixed her clothing, her smile turning a little sardonic. “I would not let them, though. I would not allow anyone, quite frankly, to ever come close to hurting any of them. Anthony, the girls or Winter.”
Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Nebula and Gamora wer not included. She would certainly not try to kill them, but were they to mysteriously die? She would only be sad about the emotional impact on Natasha, Anthony, Lizabeta and Alina (the last two having developed a strong and strange friendship with the alien Thanosdottirs).
“Family,” surmised K’uk’ulkan.
At this point, Hela saw no reason to protest this denomination any longer.
She still did not see herself as the mother of anyone.
But she had left Asgard and her family behind when she had come to Midgard and, one way or another, gained another one while on the planet. She and Edwin had all but raised Anthony themselves (certainly his parents had not), and then she had continued to do so, in her own way, after Anthony had come to live with her.
And Winter had come with him, and then the girls, and Hulk/Bruce Banner, and Clint Barton, and Thor and Loki... And even more girls had joined their family lately, courtesy of Anthony's heart (the Thanosdottirs) and Thor’s study of Midgard (a healer by the name of Jane Foster and her ally, Darcy Lewis).
Hela and Winter were both being very watchful of the newly acquired foursome, but Anthony and the girls (minus Anya and Iris in particular, as they had never been particularly fond of newcomers) had already accepted.
It was an oddly formed one, but it was a family.
This Hela could not deny.
Nor did she truly want to.
“Family,” she agreed, looking away from K’uk’ulkan’s knowing and fond eyes.
She did not even sigh when Alyona, Klara and Clint Barton jumped through her vents a few seconds later, not even pausing to apologise (or offer threats the way they did whenever they saw Hela in the company of a man or woman who was not Winter).
It was just the way family was.
Or at least this family.
Hela would admit to having no knowledge of how a normal one functioned.
“I don’t get it, would he not be happy?”
“Darcy Lewis, you are very fun, very sexy, and very clever,” said Yelena, putting her hands on the woman’s shoulders and steering her away. “But trust us when we say that Winter would literally kill you if tried to take over his job as cook in the house. And he’d enjoy it. Cooking is his only source of joy, apart from murder.”
“Incorrect – third source of joy,” said Winter, making Darcy Lewis, Jane Foster and Thor jump in surprise. He bared his teeth at them, from where he was sat on top of the fridge. “The second is scaring people.” With that, he opened the vent and put something Hela could not make out inside of it.
“How does he move so silently?” complained Thor, looking warily at Winter as he jumped off the fridge.
“He was an unwillingly drafted sniper in World War two, and then was brainwashed into being a cold blooded assassin with no free will for fifty years after that,” explained Bruce Banner, head bent over the Stark Tab he, Anthony and James Rhodes were working on. “It left him with very little sense of personhood, a twisted personality slash sense of humour, a love for psychological torment, and a concerning thirst for human blood. You get used to it.”
Thor looked deeply concerned. “That does not sound healthy.”
Yvonne scoffed. “If you thought he was healthy – if you thought anyone in this house was healthy – then that’s on you. Clearly, nobody here is emotionally stable. Not even Mila and Inessa, and Inessa is studying to be a child psychologist. I don't know what Mila is doing.”
"Nobody knows what Mila is doing," said Luda, Sophia and Alina at the same time.
“I’m just studying to figure out what exactly is wrong with me,” clarified Mila. “Cause I know I’m fucked up, partly because I was raised by and around fellow fuck-ups, but I’m curious about the specifics. But yeah, we’re all a little crazy here.”
“Amen,” agreed Anthony. “The first thing Winter did after he started getting some of his memories back was ask Hela to help him kidnap a bunch of little girls.” He glanced at the assassin. “You know, had I not been seventeen at that time, and going through severe emotional trauma – which you caused, as a matter of fact – I might have recognised that for the felony it was. You technically kidnapped them. Should you not be in jail?”
"What?" asked Jane Foster, eyes very wide while Nebula and Gamora eyed Winter in suspicion.
“Do you consider that a more or less serious offense than me murdering your parents in front of you?” asked Winter, pulling out eggs from the fridge.
"What?!"
“Depends on the day. Today I’m leaning towards less becase it’s been a few years since the last time I had a nightmare of you choking my mother to death in front of me.”
“He did what?!”
“How did you think I came into possession of either of them?” asked Hela, not looking up from the toast she was buttering for herself and Franchezka. “Did you think I acted as if Odin or Thanos and forcibly adopted the son of an enemy?”
“You did have a very strong one sided rivalry with Mr Stark,” agreed Edwin, from where he was ‘having tea’ with Viktoria and Tania. “Though that was because of the abuse towards Mister Anthony.”
“His father did what?!”
“I wish Father had exiled me,” complained Loki, pouting slightly. “This entire affair seems so chaotic and crazed.”
“Odin did not exile her,” pointed out Brunnhilde. She was behind Anthony’s bar, drinking whimsily from his bar. Hela suspected that, when he noticed, Anthony would not be happy about that. “She exiled herself. Odin tried to have her assassinated. But I told the Valkyrie not to do it, and when we got back, Odin grew cross, scrambled the Valkyries’ memories, and exiled me by throwing me off the Bifrost.”
“Even your beginnings are delightfully chaotic,” whined Loki.
“But speaking of Odin,” said Thor, turning serious. “I will be soon be gaining the crown.”
“Right,” said Hela, barely paying him any attention as Yelena made grabby hands for her toast. “You are to be crowned. That is terribly... exciting?”
“A few years ago I would have called it a disaster,” said Loki, scoffing and ignoring his brother’s pout. “But ever since you entered our lives, sister, and forced him to learn some important lessons about life and caring for your people... Perhaps it will not all go to Hel and he won’t kickstart Ragnarok.”
“Thank you for the confidence, brother,” said Thor, rolling his eyes. Then he grimaced, focusing back on Hela. “Though he is not completely wrong. You have helped shape me and my mind a great deal, sister.”
“I suppose that is what I am here for,” said Hela shrugging. Wasn’t that something sisters were meant to do? The girls had steered and shaped Anthony a great deal too (and he them).
“Indeed,” said Thor, smiling slightly. “And because of that, I wished to ask you something. Rather, I wished to make you aware of something.”
“And what would that something be?”
“When I am made King, I am planning to officially revoke you and Brunnhilde’s banishment.”
At one, the entire room fell silent.
Hela did not even bother reproaching them on their busybody attitudes or on being so obvious, instead watching Thor in surprise.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I will make it so you are no longer banished,” he explained.
She stared at him, confused. “But–”
“I know you exiled yourself,” interrupted Thor. “You left because you were tired of Odin and of his oppressive rule, and for the fact that he wished you dead and would have stopped at little to achieve it. But see, I will be King now. Father will be there, but so long as I do not start a war, he will have no reason to disagree with me. Especially if I reverse your exile first thing first – he will have no reason, before Asgard, to reinstate it.
“I know you have made your own family among the Midgardians,” he continued. “I thought it silly and confusing at the beginning, but it is clear that you care for them, and that they care for you. They would live, fight and die for you, and from what I have seen, you would do the same.
“But I wish you to know that you do have some semblance of family on Asgard too. We might have only known one another for a handful of years, but in those years you have taught both me and Loki a number of things. We might not have known from the beginning that we had a sister, but now that we do... We wish to know her better.” He glanced at a point behind Hela, and raised his hand slightly. “Not take her, of course. And if she comes, the door will be open for you all too. You are her family and everyone on Asgard will be expected to accept it.”
Hela glanced behind her, and everyone pretended to be engrossed with what they were doing once more.
“You are all terrible actors,” said Hela, rolling her eyes at the innocent looks this earned her. Then she turned back to Thor. “I do not miss Asgard.”
“I am not saying you should or that you do,” he assured. “I am not even saying that the reversal has to mean anything. I am simply saying that you are my family too, my sister, and if you ever wish to come to Asgard, then you are welcome to do so. Father had and still has no right to stop you from this.”
“And think of it this way,” said Loki, smirking. “What better way to make him fear for his life than have your brother reverse this banishment he was not meant to know of and have you return with the Valkyrie he had confused and discarded and the very powerful family you have made yourself on Midgard?”
That made Hela smile. “That would not be so bad, I presume.”
“Imagine his face when someone calls Anthony your son or the girls your daughters and he has to believe that Asgard has gained over twenty new princes and princesses at once.”
“Does it come with land?” asked James Rhodes, sounding curious. “If so, Tony and I got illegally married in Vegas in 1990, and what is mine is his and viceversa.”
“You did what?” demanded Hela, immediately turning to look at them.
“I was drunk,” protested Anthony, both hands up as they tried to put a disappointed Bruce Banner between themselves and her.
“You were sixteen!” said Hela. She turned to James Rhodes, who shrank under her gaze. “You let a sixteen years old get drunk?!”
“I was drunk too,” he protested.
Hela turned to Edwin, feeling victorious and a little annoyed. “I told you that James Rhodes was a terrible influence on Anthony.”
“We don’t know who got whom drunk,” pointed out the man.
“I bet it was Tony,” immediately said Natasha. "Raise a hand if you agree."
Mila, Bruce Banner, Anya, Antonia, Loki, Varvara, Franchezka, Gamora, Winter and Darcy Lewis raised their hands.
“My money’s on Rhodey,” said Hela.
Inessa, Thor, Clint Barton, Yelena, Nebula, Alina, Lizabeta, Alyona, Jane Foster and Darya lifted their arms in agreement.
“That is a tie,” said JARVIS. “Would you like me to place a call to the other girls to find out who they bet on?”
“Isn’t that going a little-”
“Yes,” said Hela, glaring daggers at James Rhodes. “We will find out the truth today.”
“Do Tony and I even get a say?”
“No, you damned drunks,” said Brunnhilde. “For shame!”
“Hey,” said Anthony, only now noticing her and what she had in her hands. “Is that my 1939 Chianti, annoying other girlfriend of my not-mother?!”
“Who’s the other other girlfriend?” asked the Valkyrie, confused.
“Winter,” said Anthony, Natasha, Yelena, Mila, Alina, Anya, Antonia, Varvara, Franchezka, Inessa, Lizabeta, Alyona, Darya, Thor, Loki, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Yelena and Gamora at the same time, in a rather disturbing display of synchronism.
Winter paused where he had been about to bite into a disgusting mayonnaise sandwich, Goose perched on top of his head, and blinked owlishly at them. “I am?”
“He is?” echoed Loki, sounding strangely disappointed.
“Unacceptable,” said Brunnhilde, brandishing out her sword. “I demand a duel.”
Winter dropped the sandwich and pulled out a knife from under his apron, Goose mewling in annoyance as she jumped from him to Bruce Banner.
“Put them up, Valkyrie.”
Thor glanced at Hela, alarmed. “Are you going to stop them?”
Hela got comfortable on the couch. “No, I don’t believe I will.”
“It’s hot,” agreed Loki, disturbingly enough.
Hela snorted, as the fight started and, with it, Anthony’s complaints about his brand new furniture.
“Wager?” asked Thor, finally giving up and sitting down beside her.
“Hilde,” said both Hela and Loki at the same time.
“But Winter will put up an interesting fight,” added Loki, grinning at her when she glanced his way.
Perhaps having brothers would not be the worst thing in the world.
"My couch!"